


It takes an ocean

by SomeEnchantedEve



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Infidelity, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/pseuds/SomeEnchantedEve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She falls in love with him slowly but realizes she has all at once." </p><p>As Catelyn's marriage to Brandon Stark begins to fall apart after the sudden death of his sister, she finds herself increasingly drawn to his enigmatic brother. A modern AU written for the <a href="http://got-exchange.livejournal.com">GoT Exchange</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It takes an ocean

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joely_jo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joely_jo/gifts).



> My first full-length modern AU for ASOIAF! Many, many thanks to my fabulous beta reader Alex (aka fields195) for her hard work on making this piece the best it can be! :)

In the end, Catelyn can only be ashamed of how blindly naïve she had been at the beginning. 

She has always been far more of a realist than a romantic; her sister Lysa is the one who tends towards the fantastical, who spent her adolescence under a dreamy haze of how life _should_ be and maintained such illusions well into adulthood. Catelyn always thought herself wiser, more prudent, but on the day she finally decides to end her marriage, she is forced to admit that she had constructed a fairy tale in her mind that did not really exist, and like all imaginary things built on nothing more than air and hope, it had tumbled like a house of cards around her ears. 

From the beginning, it is a steady, slow disintegration. 

\--

She is just twenty-two when Brandon proposes, the week before final exams during her senior year of university. She suspects that Rickard Stark has a hand in the whole matter; she and Brandon have been dating since her sophomore year, and despite the fact that he is older than her by three years, Brandon had graduated just a year ahead of her. He had often joked that he was on the seven year plan and therefore was actually ahead of the game by finishing in six, but Catelyn knows that Brandon’s father finds the whole thing far from amusing. The frequent arguments that Brandon has with his father are always the same – Rickard demanding that Brandon finally get serious about his life, about his responsibilities, about his future, and Catelyn thinks getting married is one way to placate him, to bridge the ever growing gap between father and son. 

But she accepts, with all the foolish eagerness of a young woman on the verge of the rest of her life; she is ready to leave school, to start teaching, to be married and start a family of her own. And if her relationship with Brandon isn’t perfect, she takes his proposal as a sign that perhaps he is finally heeding his father’s words, that Brandon Stark has finally decided to grow up. 

For a while, she isn’t wrong. Her family makes the trip from South Carolina to Maine for the wedding, where she and Brandon went to college. It is where his family still lives, and where she’s just started her job as a third grade teacher at a local elementary school not far from the house that they pick out and buy. They marry on an unseasonably warm Saturday in April, and everything is before them, glistening with promise. 

She is only more certain of their happiness when she gets pregnant within the year, and Brandon is even gladder than she’d hoped he’d be at the news. He picks her up, spins her around, immediately starts thinking of names and, half-kidding, tries to convince Catelyn that if it is a boy, they should name the baby after him. They put a down payment on a house with a yard, and they paint the nursery green, and these are the best five months of their marriage, perhaps of their whole relationship. 

When she is six months pregnant, the disasters come hand in hand. She starts spotting blood and they hurry to the hospital in a panic. She’s given medication to stop preterm labor, and her doctor gives her strict bed rest instructions for the remainder of her pregnancy. She is barely a week into her mandatory confinement when Brandon comes home in a rage and tells her that Lyanna – little Lyanna, barely twenty – has broken off her engagement with family friend Robert Baratheon, and announced that she is pregnant. 

She’s never seen Brandon so up in arms; he has always seemed to lead a charmed life, to get what he wanted, and now he rages with all the indignity of one being told for the first time that the world does not bow to his wishes. He broods in the living room, and his angry rebukes carry up the stairs to their bedroom as he talks to his father, to his brothers, but never to Lyanna herself – Lyanna, he refuses to speak to at all. He is angry all the time – at his sister, and, Catelyn can tell, at her as well for her own difficulties, though he at least tries to hide the latter. But his rage at Lyanna, he lets wave like a banner. His wild little sister had been the one to put a chink in his perfect world, and Catelyn wonders if he will ever forgive her for that. 

And a little over a year later, she wonders if he will ever forgive himself for not making peace with his sister before she killed upon impact by a drunk driver. She wonders if things would not have fallen apart so quickly, so completely, had Lyanna lived and therefore Brandon had not been plunged into a bitter, angry depression. 

He goes out after work, loses himself in drink and, Catelyn suspects, in the arms of other women too, though she has no tangible proof. She absorbs herself in the care of their son, Robb, and when Brandon does deign to come home, he looks at her in her sweatpants and high ponytail as though she has betrayed him, too. She is no longer the carefree girl he wed, with the energy to be sexy and the freedom for adventure. She is tired and irritable and in love with her baby all the same, but those things make her a stranger to Brandon, just when he had been looking for familiarity. And so he seeks comfort elsewhere, and she becomes just one more disillusion. 

When she lies in bed alone, waiting for him to come home, she wonders if the ‘how’s and ‘why’s of their rapidly crumbling marriage really matter. 

\--

Brandon’s brother Ned takes custody of Lyanna’s six-month-old son, Jon. 

Catelyn goes to court to serve as a character witness, and though she parrots all the answers she knows the judge wants to hear, she cannot help but think what a stranger her brother-in-law is to her, really. She does not doubt that Jon will have a good home with him, a safe home, but her praises of Ned sound vague and uncertain. When she glances at his face, she sees a storm of emotions in his grey eyes, the same color as Brandon’s - but far more secretive. 

Ned is an enigma to Cat. Brandon has always been inclined to moodiness, even before the trauma of his sister’s death, and his joys and rages are never a secret to her. Lyanna had been much the same in temperament. The youngest, Benjen, is far more retiring than Brandon and Lyanna both, though he is good for an easy laugh, and open enough to understand. 

But Ned does not quite fit with his more gregarious siblings. Catelyn thinks she could count the number of times she has seen him smile on one hand. The first few times she had met him, she had assumed he was so grim-faced and quiet because he did not like her, but Brandon had slung an arm around her shoulder and assured her that it was simply Ned’s nature to be serious and silent. In addition to that, he is almost painfully private, and an incredibly solitary figure. Catelyn hears occasional whispers about some girl or another – a girl newly started at Rickard Stark’s firm named Ashara, a woman who works down at the harbor by the name of Wylla. But Ned never brings them, nor any other girl, by the Stark household for Sunday dinner the way that Brandon brought Cat when they dated. No woman comes to court to stand beside Ned, the day the papers are signed and he assumes custody of his nephew. In all the years she has known him, Ned has mentioned no girl by name at all and so Cat wonders with idle curiosity if any of them really exist. 

She never sees a woman in Ned’s apartment either, nor evidence that one had been there, when she starts bringing Robb over to spend time with his cousin. Lyanna’s boy is a small, nearly silent baby, solemnly regarding the world with the same big grey eyes as the rest of the Starks; Robb, in turn, is the spitting image of Cat’s brother Edmure as a baby, and is big and boisterous. Yet somehow the two are thick as thieves, playing with trucks or blocks on the carpet of Ned’s small living room, Jon slowly coming to life as though he is thawing from ice, smiling and laughing as he helps Robb construct a tower. Robb loves his cousin, and the boy who shares his uncle’s looks and manner seems a little less lonely in Robb’s company, and so the visits become regular. 

At first, she and Ned rarely talk, sipping coffee at the kitchen table with ever a mindful ear towards the babies. Ned works with his brother and father at the firm, and Catelyn asks how he is managing so much time out of the office; Ned tells her that he is working largely from home for now, with the exceptions of his days in the courtroom, and will continue to do so until Jon is old enough for school. 

Secretly, Catelyn cannot help but wonder if Brandon would do the same thing if the need arose. She does not doubt that Brandon loves Robb, but he loves the fun of parenting, the easy parts – the games and laughter and kisses – not the late nights and temper tantrums and ear infections. Those, he gladly leaves to Catelyn, escaping to the office and all those long nights he claims to work. It isn’t fair to compare them; Brandon works hard to keep them well, and she loves being home with her son, but she cannot help but wonder all the same. 

“Do you know who his father is?” she quietly asks Ned one day, watching the two boys at play, close as brothers. Robb had learned the art of using the couch to pull himself to stand about a month ago, and he watches Jon expectantly with his hands on the cushions for balance, as though waiting for his younger cousin to join him in this new venture. Jon, for his part, takes the opportunity to claim all of Robb’s blocks as his own.

“No,” Ned answers, but his eyes slide away from hers, and she thinks that he lies less frequently and less effectively than his brother does. He does not elaborate, and she does not press the matter. Lyanna had always kept Jon’s father a secret, and though Catelyn cannot help but wonder if he is living or dead, if he knows at all that he has a son, it is not her place to pry.

But they talk of other things, as the weeks go by and she makes an effort to bring Robb by at least once a week to play with his cousin and draw him out of his little self-imposed shell. She learns that Ned doesn’t care that Brandon will take over the firm, because he wants to be a judge eventually, since it is the closest he can get in their system to seeing justice truly done. She regales him with tales from her former classroom, but admits that she loves being at home with Robb, that if she had her way she would have half a dozen more children to care for, despite how exhausting and overwhelming being a mother can be at times. He talks about Robert Baratheon and the ridiculous stunts he somehow talked Ned into during college, and she laugh and counters with the pranks she and Lysa pulled on Petyr, who lived next door. In a rare moment of intimacy, she confesses to missing her family in the south, and he answers in a way that holds no judgment, that he also misses the parts of his family that were long gone. 

She doesn’t mention her marital problems, that Brandon seems to dislike the effect of even _one_ child on her, and he doesn’t talk about why Lyanna gave Jon into his care. They settle into a comfortable rapport, and soon, Catelyn finds herself not minding that Ned is quiet and slow to smile – when he does smile, it is a beautiful thing. 

She also finds herself visiting more and more frequently, under the guise that the boys enjoy one another’s company so much. It is not a lie; she never sees either of them happier than when they are able to play together, but she comes as much for herself as for Robb’s sake or Jon’s. In Ned’s kitchen, sitting at the table engaged in quiet conversation, watching the boys play through the open doorway leading into the living room, she is as close to peace as she has been in quite some time. 

It is almost like a family, she reflects. It is almost like what she expected to have when she married Brandon. 

Most days, she tries not to think about what that means. 

\--

She doesn’t keep the days she spends at Ned’s apartment a secret from her husband, and that is how she justifies it to herself. 

“I think it’s good for Robb and Jon to spend time together,” she tells Brandon and watches him wince. The last time he saw Lyanna’s son was at her funeral, and just the mention of Jon seems to pain him, serving as a reminder of everything he has lost.

Brandon grunts noncommittally, head bowed over his dinner, and Catelyn is fairly sure he has already forgotten that she regularly spends hours alone with his brother. He does not seem to worry about it, lost in his thoughts of years long gone, and she wonders if he has it in him anymore to care. The few times she had brought Brandon home, he had always hated it when Petyr had flirted with her. If she is honest, she can barely remember that possessive, passionate Brandon anymore. Ned is certainly no Petyr, and Ned being Ned is enough reason for him _not_ to worry, but a part of her is irritated that he is so indifferent to her now. 

Another part of her is relieved. 

She thinks it would be easier if they fought and screamed; instead they live in strained silence and awkward conversation. When she cleans the dishes, and he drops a dry, distracted kiss on her cheek and says he is meeting some friends at the bar down the street, she could argue, if she cared to. He had sat cross-legged on their living room floor with Robb when he had come home from work that evening, racing toy cars with their son, inventing noises for them so that Robb laughed, high and loud; she could remind him that now Robb needed to be bathed, his diaper needed to be changed, and he needed to be put to bed before Brandon even _thought_ of going out to meet his friends.

Catelyn always thought that she would have the _energy_ to fight. She may wish Brandon would take more interest in the daily care of his son, and hate the thought of him laughing and drinking and flirting as though he did not have a wife and child waiting for him at home, but she cannot deny that there is a part of her – a small part, a piece she is not proud of – that finds solace in being alone. 

It is that part of her that gnaws at her when she tells herself that she should be angry, when he returns late in the night. It is that piece, that leaves her merely tired and numb. She pretends to be asleep when he slips in bed beside her, reeking of old cigarette smoke and beer and, just beneath that, something chemically sweet and floral. The press of his lips to the back of her neck is almost apologetic, and she stiffens, drawing her knees in against her chest. 

To her surprise, he speaks. “Do you ever think that maybe we grew up too fast? Got married, got pregnant…” He sounds wistful, forlorn, and when she gives him a sidelong glance, he is staring straight up at the ceiling, his eyes far away. 

“Why? Do you regret it?” she asks quietly, and he heaves a sigh.

“I don’t know,” he admits. That should hurt, but all she can think is that it may be the most honest moment of their marriage. 

And it is almost nice, in a bittersweet way, to hear the truth from Brandon for once, though she repays it with only a half-truth of her own. “No,” she answers his initial question, and curls in more tightly on herself. The rest she leaves unspoken - _she_ has not grown up too quickly, and she doubts that Brandon has actually grown up at all.

\--

She takes Robb to meet Ned and Jon at a local Christmas tree farm the second week in December. “I don’t have the right eye for these kind of things,” he tells her when he invites her, but she suspects he asks her more out of the realization that Brandon likely wouldn’t make time, knowing she would need the muscle to wrestle the tree into the house. She hates pity, but she appreciates the kind, tactful lie all the same, and the invitation even more, so she accepts. 

The snow is fresh on the ground, and though she’s lived in Maine since starting college, Catelyn can still barely abide the cold. Ned, on the other hand, seems to thrive in it, and she can see a twinkle of amusement in his eyes as she triple wraps her scarf and shoves her gloved hands into the pockets of her down parka, hunching her shoulders against the chill.   
The boys run far faster than their chubby two-year-old legs and the abundant layers which make them as wide as they are tall should allow. When they spot a tree (if it could even be called such) no taller than they are, they hurry over in a rush and Jon points at it, exclaiming, “Dad!” while tipping his head back to Ned, as though to persuade him. 

Catelyn raises her eyebrows in surprise as Ned huffs a laugh and suggests that they keep looking. “Is he going to call you ‘Dad’?” she asks curiously, making sure to lower her voice. 

Ned waits until the boys have started off again, keeping an ever watchful eye on their retreating backs in their bright blue and red puffy coats, before answering. “He can call me whatever he wants,” he says in his quiet manner, with a half shrug of his shoulders. “I’m not going to keep the truth from him, but it’s hard on a child to not have a mother or a father. And in everything but biology, I am his parent.” 

She looks at him, the flakes of snow sticking to his beard and scarf, and thinks of the ladies she has only heard whispered of in passing, of Ashara Dayne and Wylla. She wonders how such a good man could be so determined to be alone. 

He follows her back to the house afterwards and helps her wrestle the tree inside. It is dark and empty when she unlocks the door, and Robb pushes past her legs with Jon on his heels, eager to show him the new toy truck Brandon had brought home for him from his last ‘business trip.’ Catelyn puts on a CD of Christmas carols while Ned configures the lights on the tree – Brandon could do it when he got home, but she doesn’t stop Ned. 

“Brandon’s working today – he says he has a new case,” she offers as explanation, feeling as though she has to excuse her husband’s absence on a Saturday afternoon. She expects Ned to buy that reasoning about as much as she does – perhaps even less, as Ned would have a better idea of his brother’s true workload at the firm than she, but tactfully, he does not argue. Briefly, Cat wonders what other truths about Brandon Ned may know, but keeps to himself. 

She should leave it at that; her marriage to Brandon is something they never discuss. She may enjoy the time they have spent together, may value their budding friendship, but she never deigns to forget that Ned is Brandon’s brother above anything that he may be to her. But the words come tumbling out of her, one lonely soul reaching for another across the void. “He isn’t home much, anymore…since your sister died. Maybe even before that. Maybe since Robb was born.” 

Ned watches her silently, and she ducks her head, certain that she has made a misstep. “I’m sorry,” she says honestly. “I shouldn’t…you’re his brother. And I’m not being fair to him.” 

He touches her elbow soothingly, in a way that brings her comfort, and she dares to look into his face. His eyes are full of sympathy, but not, to her relief, pity – that is one thing Catelyn could not abide. Her marriage to Brandon is far from easy, but she is there of her own volition; she does not need anyone to feel _sorry_ for her. “Brandon’s always had a hard time with change,” Ned admits, and Catelyn huffs a laugh under her breath in response. 

“How long do I wait?” she asks, wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a day that Brandon will wake up and accept the lot that life has brought him, the good and the bad, and stop searching for something to fill his discontentment. 

“Only as long as you want to,” Ned answers honestly. 

\--

She falls in love with him slowly but realizes she has all at once. 

She knows that she has come to rely on him and the companionship he offers; that when they are apart, she often feels his absence more keenly than she feels Brandon’s on the nights that he does not come home. She looks back and laughs at herself when she thinks of how she thought him to be a cold man, when she knows the truth now; he has one of the sweetest hearts she has ever known, and he is unequivocally a _good_ man. But she avoids putting a name to the flutter in her stomach, the giddiness in her heart, because things are simpler that way; until one day, they simply aren’t anymore. 

She stands at the stove sautéing vegetables for the pasta, having invited Ned and Jon over for dinner. She is no master chef, but Ned is by his own admission an abysmal cook and doesn’t have time for it besides, so upon occasion she will bring leftovers with her or invite them over for a home-cooked meal. When she had mentioned to Brandon that his brother and nephew would be over that night, he had said that he would try and leave on time, but would make no promises. 

Catelyn has learned that such vagueness is as good as a ‘no’ from her husband, a gentle ‘no’ when he does not want her to argue. 

Ned leans over from behind her, to reach into the cabinet above her head for some wine glasses, and he rests his fingers briefly on her hip to alert her to his presence. It is a quick brush, barely a touch at all, but it sends a jolt through her, and she tilts her head to look up at him. 

Ned is nowhere near as handsome as Brandon, but his long face and gentle eyes hold their own charm. She has long valued their friendship, as strange and forged by tragedy as it is, and often marvels at the gentleness and goodness beneath that serious exterior. But as he stretches around her, close enough that she can smell his aftershave, it is the first time she feels the pang of attraction, that she desires not just his friendship but _him_ , as a woman wants a man. There have been times that she has wondered what it would be like if the four of them were a family – traitorous, passing fantasies – but for the first time, she wonders what it would be like to lean up and press her lips to the pulse point of his neck, what it would be like to go to bed with him at the end of the day, to wake up next to him in the morning. She imagines all the ways he might be like his brother and all the ways he might be different. As her mind wanders, she can feel her face turning red, and she is sure that Ned can read the embarrassment and shame written across her features. 

It is the briefest of moments, then he takes the glasses from the cabinet and withdraws, and it is over. How could something so small, Catelyn wonders, so irrevocably change things?  
\--

Catelyn has always striven to do the right thing, the _honest_ thing, and in the face of such dishonorable thoughts and feelings, she still tries to do the best she can – she stops her visits and avoids Ned, planning to extinguish her desire that way. 

He calls only once, to inquire after her health, as well as Robb’s and Brandon’s, and when she tells him that they are all fine, he does not call again. The fact that he lets her slip back out of his life as seamlessly as she had slipped in hurts, and she scolds herself for her weakness. 

Robb, unsurprisingly, does not appreciate her plan, and takes to banging his spoon on the table and demanding that she take him to _Jon Jon Jon Jon._ She takes him to the park instead, hoping that the fresh air and sunshine, as well as the dozens of other children, will distract him. It works briefly, until it is time to return home for dinner, and Robb remembers the cousin that has become practically a brother to him, and asks again for _Jon Jon Jon_. 

It is her sadness for her son, Catelyn tells herself, and certainly not the emptiness inside her at the absence of the steady, solid presence she has grown so accustomed to, that makes her call Ned and suggest he bring Jon to the park one Saturday morning. The two cousins embrace in a tangle of limbs as though they have been kept apart for an eternity and then, quick as a flash, they are off to the sandbox, attuned to each other as though they have not missed a second at all. 

Ned sits on the bench beside her, and Catelyn congratulates herself on inviting him to such a public place – it is far less intimate, far less _dangerous_ here than it is in his apartment or her house. “They’ve missed each other,” he notes, his voice a low timbre, and she tries to draw her mind away from the way the sound settles in her belly, from the way his thigh nearly brushes against her own. She wonders if this is really such a safe place to meet after all. 

A thousand excuses fly through her mind, though she can bring none to her tongue. She’s always appreciated how honest Ned is with her, his plain manner of speaking, and she finds it difficult to lie to him now, though she is certain the truth will cause nothing but trouble and discomfort. “I know,” she says quietly. “Robb has been asking for Jon for days.” She sighs, watching the boys at play, heads bent seriously over their work. Beside her, Ned waits for her further explanation. “But I find it…difficult to be around you, sometimes,” she admits, her voice barely above a whisper. 

It would be so much easier, Catelyn thinks, if he were confused or surprised by her confession – or, at least, if he had the sense to pretend to be. But she has learned that neither of them are particularly skilled at the art of pretending. Perhaps if they were, the makeshift family they have crafted, the brushes of companionship, would be enough to sate her, rather than make her ache for more. For everything. 

But instead he sighs, dipping his head and resting his elbows on his knees, rubbing his temples with the pads of his thumbs. The silence stretches on, long and painful, and it reminds her of all the silences she found so off-putting, before she learned to find Ned’s quiet manner so soothing. Her eyes burn, and she blames it on the wind of the brisk March morning, blinking back tears that she cannot even admit to herself. 

“I’m sorry,” she says finally, keeping her eyes on Robb’s back, despite her awareness of Ned studying her face. 

“Cat,” he replies quietly, with some difficulty. “It isn’t…it isn’t as though I’ve never thought of it. That I don’t…think about it.” 

He does not have to add ‘but’ – the implications speak for themselves, hang like heavy weights between them, dragging them down. But she is his brother’s wife, had chosen her path long ago, so young and yet so eager to be grown, so _sure_ she knew what she wanted out of life, out of a man. She had sought the exciting, the unfamiliar, the challenging, and now she is left with a feeling strangely like homesickness when she looks at Ned and thinks of everything that could have been if she had but waited. 

Or perhaps not. Catelyn is a practical woman, and she can admit readily enough that perhaps she never would have known Ned at all, much less come to love him, if she had not married his brother. Perhaps Brandon had been the vehicle of not just his own self-destruction, but hers, as well, all this time. 

Or perhaps she is merely blaming Brandon to assuage herself of guilt for having fallen in love with her husband’s brother. If that is the case, she is not quite successful. 

“You do, too?” she asks under her breath, unable to meet his eye, and she jumps a bit, surprised, when she feels his fingers lace through hers. 

He does not answer her, but he holds tight. 

\--

When she kisses Ned, she has already decided to leave Brandon.

She doesn’t excuse herself because of this – she is still married, and Ned is still Brandon’s brother, and the latter, at least, will never change. Maybe that is why she seizes the moment, grasps what could be a last opportunity. She does not fool herself into thinking that her relationship with Ned would be unchanged once she left his brother, that they could continue as they were or even grow closer still. Whatever they may have shared or whatever bond they may have forged, she knows his loyalty will always be first and foremost with his family. She will always be tied to Brandon through Robb, but she will be part of that particular pack no longer. She mourns that loss almost more than she does the final breakdown of her marriage, broken and messy as it has become. 

But later, in moments when the guilt threatens to choke her, she has to remind herself of this – that she kisses Ned because she has decided to leave Brandon, and not the other way around. 

It is an unseasonably balmy June evening, and Brandon is in a good enough mood to invite his family over and fire up the grill. Catelyn expects to feel uncomfortable, sitting on the secrecy of her decision, but she finds her newfound resolution brings her a measure of peace, so that the evening passes fairly amicably. Brandon drinks too many beers and heads to bed early, but Catelyn can’t quite bring herself to go inside and join him, even after the sun has set and Benjen and Rickard go home, even after Robb and Jon have played themselves out and fallen asleep inside in a heap. 

Ned lingers with her on the back porch, sitting beside her on the bench of the rickety picnic table that Brandon had put together two summers ago, nursing the same beer that has been in front of him for the past three hours. The silence between them is easy, comfortable, but still intangibly laced with melancholy. 

“I’m leaving him,” she blurts out, before she can reconsider. Ned is the first person she tells, and to say it out loud is to make it final, make it real. It is a relief, in a way, a weight off her shoulders, yet the enormity of it still brings tears to her eyes. 

Ned raises his eyebrows and studies her expression for a few moments, patiently waiting for her to compose herself. She is grateful for his consideration. “Okay,” he replies when she manages to meet his eyes, and she notices that he doesn’t sound surprised. She wonders if Rickard will be surprised, or Benjen. She wonders if Brandon will. 

Perhaps they all saw the end coming long ago, and she is just the first to acknowledge it. 

“Okay,” she whispers back, and when she blinks, the tears spill down her cheeks. Embarrassed, she tips her face away to hide it, but when she feels Ned’s hand hesitantly touch her shoulder, she doesn’t resist. She leans into him as he slides his arm around her back, her cheek coming to rest against his chest, where she can feel the steady thrum of his heart. She closes her eyes, allowing herself a moment of weakness to breathe in the scent of his aftershave, to enjoy the warmth of his skin beneath his cotton shirt. It is the closest she has ever been to him, and she is not foolish enough to believe she will ever again be afforded the opportunity. The thought makes her chest ache and her breath catch in her throat. 

“I’m sorry,” Ned murmurs, raising a hand tentatively to her hair, cradling her head to his chest. 

“Don’t say anything,” she whispers. “I haven’t told him yet. This weekend. Maybe I could drop off Robb for a couple of hours?” A couple of hours, in truth, is all she will need to dismantle her world. The house is Brandon’s, so she should plan to leave and go – where? Her first instinct is to leave cold Maine and the heartache she has found here behind to go back to her family in South Carolina. But Brandon is Robb’s father, and his cousin Jon is his best friend – how could she take her son away from them for her own comfort? And, she admits to herself as she curls a hand into Ned’s t-shirt, there are things in Maine that she is loathe to move so far from, too, no matter how far out of her reach they may be. 

“Of course,” he assures her. “Whatever you need.” 

It isn’t an invitation, but she kisses him at that, anyway. 

He hums in surprise against her lips, and his fingers tighten on the ball of her shoulder. The hairs on his upper lip tickle her, and she raises a hand to cup his bearded cheek as he parts his lips so that she can slip her tongue into his mouth. It is messy and wet and a bit desperate, altogether entirely too reckless – should Brandon wake up and pass by the window in their bedroom, he could easily see them in the yard despite the cast of darkness. Yet it is the first time in years that Catelyn does something because _she_ wants to, rather than because it is the right thing, the responsible thing, the practical thing. 

He pulls her closer against the hard planes of his body, and she moans softly, nipping lightly on his bottom lip. It would be so easy to move closer still, to slide into his lap, to push him to the ground, and she shudders at the shot of arousal that courses through her body at the thought. 

But the guilt catches her when she draws away for air, and she casts a quick glance at the house where her son and the man who is still her husband sleep. Yet the guilt does not filter into regret, so she does not offer an apology as Ned sighs and stands up. 

She is not even sorry later that night, when she finally goes upstairs to bed, and she lies next to Brandon and thinks of his brother. But it is off-putting all the same, for the feeling that does settle into her gut is not so different from the feeling she had when Brandon proposed – that she is standing on the edge of her life beginning, a prospect that is exciting and terrifying all at once. 

\--

For the first time, she is glad when Brandon does not come home the next night, and she doesn’t spare a thought for where he might be compared to where he _claims_ he is. She gives Robb his bath, puts him in his pajamas, and packs the sleepy three-year-old into the car. 

By the time she knocks on Ned’s apartment door, Robb is sleeping against her shoulder. Ned looks understandably surprised when he opens the door to find her there. “Cat,” he says, his brows knitting together in concern. “Is everything all right?” 

“Fine,” she replies, her heart in her throat and her blood rushing in her ears from nerves and anticipation. “Can I put Robb in with Jon?” 

He considers her silently for just a moment, but that moment is all she needs to see the flicker of realization in his eyes. “Sure,” he replies, and moves aside to let her in. 

The light from the hall is enough to illuminate Jon’s sleeping face, mouth agape, thumb sneaking to his mouth. The covers sporting racecars are kicked to the end of the bed, and a stuffed animal of a smiling wolf has fallen to the floor. Gently, she lies Robb on the pillow beside him, and the two curl familiarly around each other, neither waking from their slumber. She smiles wanly, placing the wolf back on the bed and flickering on the nightlight before closing the door gently behind her. 

Ned is waiting for her in the hallway, and she goes into his arms before he can protest, before he can ask questions, before either of them can think better of it. _I love you,_ is on the tip of her tongue, _and I just wanted you to know that, before everything has to change._

But she bites the words back – they are not fair to him, to either of them, and she has never been one to unload her burdens upon another, even when her burden is her affection. And if she is honest, there is some self-preservation there as well – how could he respond to such a declaration from his brother’s wife? Attraction and affection were one matter; _love_ would be an entirely different entanglement, one that Ned, in the years she has known him, seems keen to avoid. 

Instead she kisses him, more roughly than the night before, hands grasping at the back of his neck while rising up on her toes to reach him more easily. He meets her without hesitation this time, hands spread wide on her back. 

It is different than kissing Brandon. Brandon had always been so sure of himself, so certain of his own good looks and charm. She had been swept up in that rush of self-confidence, giddy that such a man had been hers. There is something sweeter, something more eager to please in the way that Ned kisses her, cupping her jaw in his hands, threading his fingers through the loose tendrils of her hair. 

When they fall into his bed together, it ignites her blood more than ever before, to have him try and kiss her everywhere, all at once, and she tries to shrug out of her blouse and jeans. He follows along her shoulders and arm and collarbone, seeking newly revealed skin, and she tips her head back and gasps before pulling him back to meet her mouth, a clash of teeth and tongues and _need_. 

Despite their urgency, she waits for one of them to come to their senses, to pull back with a guilty grimace. But when Ned does to sit back on his knees, it is to help her shuck her jeans down her legs before dropping hot, damp kisses to her thighs and her stomach, kisses that make her moan and spear her fingers through his hair. 

She pushes him to his back and climbs atop him to straddle his hips, unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans. His cock is rock hard beneath the brush of her fingers, and it makes her clench with want. She slides out of her underwear and has to muffle a shout when his hand slips between her legs, caressing and exploring, his fingers curling inside her, his other hand cupping under her bottom for leverage. His intent gaze on her face is almost too much, and she lets her eyes flutter closed as she rocks against his fingers, her hands gripping his shoulders for balance. 

Ned rolls them again unexpectedly and instinctively, she spread her legs wide. Catelyn moans in frustration as he draws his hand away from her sex, reaching beneath her to unclasp her bra and slide it down her arms. “Come here,” she pleads, voice breathless, and she shivers at the hot rush of his breath against her neck as he moans when he pushes inside her. 

She wraps her arms and legs around him as he begins to move, drawing him ever closer. His hands and mouth are almost frantic; he sucks at her pulse point and cups her breast in his palm, dances his tongue along her nipple while reaching between their bodies to stroke hard and fast against her clit, swallows her breathless murmurings of his name by capturing her mouth again. She arches her hips sharply off the bed, trying to take him deeper, feel him closer, and she wonders if he has imagined as long as she has. She wonders if she can go back to mere fantasies, after having had him in flesh and blood. 

It does not take long for either of them, and it is a harried race to the finish. The force of her orgasm takes her by surprise, and she bites his shoulder to muffle her instinctive loud cry. He follows almost immediately after, resting his forehead against hers and panting harshly as he comes. She tightens her grip around him as he rests against her, their skin damp and quickly cooling, unwilling to let him go and move away from her, away from the brief indulgence and back to looming reality. 

For a long moment, the room is quiet, the silence broken only by their rough breathing. Then Ned raises himself up, resting on his forearms and studying her closely, brushing the damp hair off her face with a tender touch. She can see the guilt filter into his eyes, can see the shift in his expression as he stops seeing her, Catelyn, and starts seeing his brother’s wife, and the wrong he has done Brandon. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers rawly, and Catelyn wearily closes her eyes. “I shouldn’t have…” 

“Don’t,” she interrupts, unable to keep pain from lacing her voice. “Don’t say you’re sorry unless you really regret it.” 

He sighs, and she sits up. He leans over and kisses her softly, almost chastely, and it tastes like goodbye. 

\--

It takes Ned six months after the separation and a month after the divorce is finalized to see her. 

Brandon does not fight her, when she asks him for a divorce. In truth, Catelyn would have been surprised if he _had_ argued, when they have spent so many years avoiding the ever-growing chasm between them rather than look for ways to bridge the distance. Instead, he looks very nearly relieved, and for that, Catelyn cannot blame him - she is largely relieved, too. One thing that he does not seem is surprised, and again Catelyn wonders if everyone had seen the truth before she did. 

In their custody agreement, Brandon has Robb on Wednesdays and alternate weekends, and she knows Ned often brings Jon by so the two boys can spend time together. Catelyn tells herself it is a good thing that she has been cut from the picture, that she needs to gain distance from the Starks, that loneliness had driven her into to her husband’s brother’s arms, rather than true compatibility. 

If she tells herself so often enough, she thinks, perhaps she will miss him less. After six months, it does not work any better. Instead, she is merely reminded of how stubborn they both are. 

Then after that time passes, one Sunday night she hears the knock on the door signifying her ex-husband’s arrival to drop off Robb at the end of their weekend together. But when she opens the door, she finds Ned on the other side, holding Robb’s hand, and for a moment, she can’t breathe. 

Her son doesn’t seem to sense anything amiss, and he runs past her legs to put his bag in his room in the apartment they share. Catelyn could have taken the house, was tempted to for Robb’s sake, yet she hadn’t wanted any charity from Brandon; she had been so determined to be grown up when he asked her to marry him, and now it is time to truly strike out on her own as an adult. 

She looks at Ned and waits – waiting is something she has gotten better at, too. 

“I wanted to call you,” he tells her, in his quiet, solemn voice. “I didn’t know what to say.” 

Catelyn is not foolish enough to think that their path would be easy, and perhaps it is, as she had always thought, impossible. But here he is, his hands shoved in his pockets, his eyes drinking her in. For a moment, she feels a little less lonely, and it is a bit like coming home. And so she finds herself asking, “Do you want to come in?” 

“Yeah,” he answers. “I do.” 

She smiles, just a bit, and steps aside.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments are greatly appreciated!


End file.
